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THKEE MONTHS IN GREAT BRITAIN. 

. I 

A LECTURE 



OB 

THE PRESENT ATTITUDE .,- 

AS DETERMINED BY PERSONAL OBSERVATION. 

BY 

J. M. STLTI^TEVANT, T). D. 

PBKSIDKNT OF II.LmOIS GOLl-KGK. 



CH1CA.GJ-0: 

JOHN A. NORTON, 

126i DEARBORN STREET 
1864. 



Chicago, July 5, 1884. 
Rev. J. M. STURTEVANT, D. D., 

Jacksonville, 111. 

Dear Sir — The undersigaed desire to express to you their belief that 
the publication of the Lecture delivered by you in this city on the 28th day 
of April last, on the sentiments and opinions of the people of Great Britain, 
relative to the civil strife now going on in this country would meet a demand 
which has long been felt, and which nothing else known to us so well supplies^ 

We Lhinlv it a duty which we owe to ourselves and to our nation not to 
sufifer such an opportunity to pass, without preserving, if possible, in some 
tangible and permanent form, the views thus offered by you upon a question 
of so much interest to the American public. We are also persuaded that 
the publiciUion of your lecture will contribute greatly to the instruction of 
our people in the duties which they owe to their own government, and lead 
them to value more highly those political privileges and institutions which 
th;\t government guarantees to her citizens. 

Entertaining these views with regard to your lecture, we would most re- 
spectfully solicit a copy for publication. 

Very respectfully, 

CHARLES WALKER, L. P. HILLTARD, 

U. F. .MATHER, J. N. JEWETT, 

LEVI B. TATT, B. W. RAYMOND, 

C. a. HAMMOND, JOSEPH HAVKN, 

GRANT GOODRICH, B. W. BI.ATCHKORD, 

H. K. SEELYE, J. C. IJUItKOUGHS. 

F. W. FISK, B. S. cm- SIMM UGH, 

SAMUEL C. BARTLETT, Z. M. HUM I'll KEY, 

H F. STEELE, R. W. PATTLllSON, 

LCI HER HAVEN, WM. W. PATXON, 

THO'S, B. BRYAN, E. B. WARD, Detroit, Mich. 
THOMAS J. TURNER, Freeport, Ills. 



Illinois College, July 20, 1864. 
Messrp. CHARLES WALKER, H. F. MATHER, AND OTHERS: 

Ge.ntlkmkn— I thank you for your kind estimate of my lecture delivered in 
your city on the 28th of April last Inasmuch as my own mind underwent 
cons-iderable changes during my sojourn in Britain, respecting the value of 
British opinion on American affairs, and the present and prospective relations 
of England as at present governed to our own country and to universal liberty, 
I am more than willing to give the reasons of those changes to the American 
public. I therefore without hesitation place my manuscript at your disposal. 

Yours, very respectfully, 

J. M. STURTEVANT. 



F. A. Pierce & Co., Printen, ISO l4kke Strest. 



u 



GREAT BiQTAlN AKD THE UiNlTED STATES. 



Ladies and Gentlkimen: — 

Yon will not expect to be entertained to-night with the 
novel and thrilling incidents of foreign travel. I tippear 
before yon for no snch purpose, l)nt to report as well as I 
am able, the results of my observations, during a sojourn 
of three months in Great Britair,, of the existing state of 
British opinion and feeling t<i\vai'd this country, and to 
assign what seem to me to be its causes. 

I enter on the performance of this task, with a stroug 
conviction ol the importance of what I have undertaken to 
do; for he who shall at this time successfully discuss , the 
subject I have just indicated, will throw a great deal of 
light on the present and prospective condition of Britain, 
and on her relations to the cause of freedom all over the 
world. He will also present to the American people a 
higher and a juster view of the value and importance of 
our own free institutions, and strengthen the purpose to 
perpetuate tliem at whatever cost of precious treasure, and 
more precious blood. 

I deeply feel my own inadequacy to so great an underta- 
king, and throw myself u]3on the indulgence of my hearers; 
especially begging them to bear in mind the impossibility 
of dealing thoroughly and satisfactorily with so gi'eat a 
subject, in the space of a single lecture. 



I claim to be quite free from one disqualification for cor- 
rect obsei'vation in Britain. I am not and never can be a 
hater of England and the English. If you know an 
American who has visited England, in the spirit in which 
Russell, formerly of thy London Times, visited the United 
Stati'f^, with a disposition to see nothing worthy of admira- 
tion, and to disparage whatever he saw, give no heed to his 
testimony; he is an untrustworthy witness; do not read 
his hodkif he has published one, though you have already 
purchased it; it will only mislead you. No man can testify 
truly or a foreign country, unless he has seen it in a spirit 
of kindness and candor, disposed to enjoy the beautiful and 
admire the admirable, without one feeling of envy or 
jealousy. 

Such certainly was my feeling towards England. I set 
my foot on her soil for the first time with exultation. It 
was the realization of many a fond day-dream, which I had 
supposed would lia only aday-dream, and I felt great delight 
in a realization so unexpected. I reverenced England as 
the mother of free nations, and the mother of my own 
country. I regarded her with a sentiment truly filial, and 
many of the results of my own observations, which I am 
alx'ut to report, were contradictory to the prejudices of my 
whole previous life, and were accepted with such sorrow as 
one feels, when forced by stern necessity to acknowledge a 
wi'ong in one he loves. I experienced while in Eii2!:iiid 
and [.Scotland from many individuals and families much 
personal kindness, and generous lioppitality, and foi-med 
nuiiiy acijuaintances, and some friendships, whicli I hope 
will last as long as life; and it will always be painful tome 
to Tobuke that Britain whicli they love as their country. 
But the ta-^k I have imposed on m^'self compels me foi- the 
moment to lay aside both love and hatred, and endeavor to 
ejieak the truth with freedom and fairness. 

From the moment of my landing on British soil, my 
mind was very earjiestly directed to the present state of 



British opinion and feeling relative to the conflict now in 
progress in our country. I think any American visiting 
England at that time would have reasoned thus: that there 
is in that country a large and zealous body of religous peo- 
ple and earnest philanthropists, who have for half a cen- 
tury manifested great hostility to the system of African 
slavery, not only within the dominion of Queen Victoria, 
but in our own country also. And surely these people 
wherever found will occupy no uncertain position in rela- 
tion to the great American conflict. They will regard an 
attempt to destroy the American Union because it is too 
favorable to the freedom of the Negro, and to found a new 
"confederacy" on slavery as its corner stone, with unquali- 
fied abhorrence, and accord to our government and people 
their hearty sympathy and good will in our fearful struggle 
with a foe, that has taken up arms avowedly to perpetuate 
and extend Negro servitude. He would have reasoned 
farther, that as in the year 1834 this anti-slavery party was 
strong: enouo-h to control the action of the British Parlia- 
ment, and secure the passage of an Act emancipating the 
last slave in the British Empire, at an expense to the nation 
of one hundred millions of dollars, it would be reasonable 
to expect to find a very large portion of the enlightened 
and religious classes of the English people, in open and 
earnest sympathy with the North. 

Such had been my reasonings, and such were my expec- 
tations. And I further assumed, that if any of this class 
of men should be found to have been misled by such lying 
journals as the London Times, they would only need to 
knoM^ the facts as they are, to insure right thinking and 
rio-ht feeling on the whole subject. With such expecta- 
tions I began my intercourse with the people of England. 
My hearers, may therefore judge of my surprise at being 
told by a highly intelligent merchant of Liverpool, and 
a truly excellent man, on the evening of my second day 
on British soil, that English people did at the beginning 



of the American war generally sympatliize with the Korth, 
but that most of them had at that time changed their 
minds, and were in sympathy with the South. Every step 
however, that I took in that country convinced me more 
and more, that in respect to the present sympathy of the 
people with the South, he was certainlj'- not tar from the 
truth ; though his statement that at lirst they were gener- 
ally for the ]S[orth, is contradicted by a very huge hodj 
of testimony equally respectable, and I am unable to accept 
it as accurate. 

I find it difficult so to classify the forme of opinion which 
I met, as to do no injustice to any. There is one class, 
tliongh I must in justice say it is, so far as my observations 
extended, a small one, whose views and feelings do corre- 
spond to the expectations which I had formed : they do 
thoroughly understand what has been taking place in our 
country during the last eight or ten years : they fully appre- 
ciate the political agitations which preceded the elections 
of 18G0 : they know accurately the cause of the war, and 
the spirit and design of tlie insurgents : they are in earnest 
sympathy with the North, and watch the progress of events 
with little less intensity of interest, than any loyal citizen 
of the United States. Hon. and Rev. Baptist W. Noel is 
such a man, and his name ouglit to be familiar and dear to 
every American ; he is of a noble family, the brother of a 
Lord ; had in early life taken orders m the church of Eng- 
land, and with his high connections, his accomplished man- 
ners and elegant scholarship, being also a favorite witli the 
Queen, he had every prospect of the highest proni" :on in 
the established church. But his opinions were stubbornly 
against the establishment, and to those opinions he deter- 
mined to be faithful in practice, at whatever cost. lie 
therefore left the established church and all his splendid 
prospects in it, and became and now is the pastor of an 
unpretending Baptist church in London. I had the pleas- 
ure of a favorable introduction to him, and enjoyed several 



very agreeable interviews. No American understands our 
case better than he, or has a heart that beats with warmer 
afiection for American freedom. I have never had the 
pU^asnre of meeting a nobler specimen of the christian 
gentleman, and shall always love England while she pro- 
duces even a few such men as he. 

I met other persons who took similar views of the Amer- 
ican war, men who have judged of it in perfect consistency 
with their life-long hostility to Kegro slavery. It is my 
upi!iion that such men are more numerous in proportion in 
Scotland than in England. 

TliL-re is a second chiss of persons, more numerous than 
the one just described, who are sincere and earnest in their 
love of liberty, but who liave been misled by the false rep- 
resentations of American alFairs, which have of late tilled 
and disgraced a large portion of the popular literature of 
England. These men are candid, will hear the truth, and 
can be easily set right, and will heartily thank the man 
thar sets them right. But within the circle of my observ- 
ations they are by no means a numerous and influential 
class, but among them an intelligent American can do a 
great deal of good. To this class for the most part I pre- 
sume belong the audiences who so nobly responded to the 
eloquent words of Henry Ward Beecher in the five princi- 
pal cities of Britain. 

I met a third class, also small, composed of persons who 
profess great abhorrence of the system of Negro slavery, 
and repudiate the cliarge of having any sympathy with the 
slaveholders' rebellion, or the slaveholders' "confederacy." 
But they are peace men; they have adopted the extreme 
peace principles of Elihu Burritt and his co-laborers, and 
esteem all war whether offensive or defensive a crime. 
They hold that if the South wished to secede on any ac- 
count whatever, the Federal government was bound to let 
her go in peace. They quote the example of our own sep- 
aration from England as in point, and hold that when any 



people wish to rupture the ties of nationah'ty in which they 
are bound, and to establish a new independent state, they 
have a right to do so, and that to hinder their doing so by 
force is oppression. 

They are in the profoundest ignorance of the practical 
difficulties which exist to forbid such a peaceful dissolution 
of the American Union, and in their simplicity imagine, 
that at the outset of the great rebellion, it would have been 
as easy to make two nations out of the United States of 
America, without shedding one drop of human blood, as to 
cut our map into two pieces with a pair of scissors. Our 
own countryman, Elihu Burritt, was in London while I was 
there, and I presume still is, but is restrained from any utter- 
ance in behalf of his suffering and much abused country, by 
liaving in former years committed himself to these extreme 
peace principles. lie luis perhaps more influence over 
English minds and in English homes than any other living 
American, and it is sad to find that by his own folly he is 
at this time lost to his country and to liberty. 

So far as the men of this class are sincere, they are of 
course amiable enthusiasts, and I found it rather refreshing 
to witness their eagerness to instruct me and my countrymen, 
on a subject upon which they are themselves so profoundly 
ignorant. There are many, however, who advocate this 
view, to whom I was unable to give any credit for sincerity. 
Under the garb of love of peace and abhorrence of war they 
are evidently seeking to hide the bitterest hatred of our free 
country, and an intense sympathy with the slave holder's 
reliellion. 

So far as my observations extended all these three classes 
taken together form but a minority of the English people. 
Of the rest, composing I fear a vast majority of the nation, 
1 am confident two things may be asserted without doing 
any injustice. 

1. That they have no sympathy at all with the Federal 
Government in its efforts to suppress the great rebellion. 



but that on the contrary they strongly desire the dissolu- 
tion of the American Union, and the success of the "South- 
ern Confederacy " as a means to that end. 

2. That they wish to have this result secured without 
involving England in the dangers and certain calamities of 
a war with the United States. 

I do not think many Englishmen sympathize with the 
slaveholder's "confederacy" for Us oton mke ; they feel it 
to be an ugly and hideous thing, and would not wish to 
seem its advocates or friends; but they value it as a wood- 
splitter does his wedge, as a means of producing division. 
They contemplate the dissolution of the American Union 
with great satisfaction, and they ardently desire and w<.i;Id 
favor in every way in their power the success of the rebel 
cause, as a means of so eflectually dividing this nation, that 
the dissevered parts can never again be reunited; and in 
the eagerness of their desire for its success, they forget its 
moral deformity and hideousness. Many flatter themselves 
that in desiring to see our country divided they are influ- 
enced by no feelings of hostility. They persuade them- 
selves that it would be l)etter for us; that our country has 
become too large and unwieldy; that the Northerners and 
S(uitlierners are so op[)oscd to each other in tastes and 
character, that it is impossibU- ihoy should ever hve togeth- 
- er in peace under the same government. This always 
seemed to me to come with a very bad grace IVom a people 
who, notwithstanding the irreconcilable opposition of the 
Irish to the English characterand government numifested for 
ages, are always ready to shed rivers of blood if necessary to 
hold Ireland t-o the Uni(»n however unwilling. But our 
English cousins do not always feel it necessary to be con. 
sistent in such matters, and are to be understood to mean 
that it is inexpedient and wrong to bind together under the 
same government people of opposite styles of character and 
civilization, unless it is necessary to the integrity of the 
Bi-itish empire. In that case it would seem to them quite 
iustitiable and necessary. 



8 

I fear I shall hardly be belived by my American hearers 
when I state this matter as strongly as the truth requires. 
There are very few people in England, or certainly there 
were wlien I was there, who believe it possible to restore 
and perpetuate the Union. This is true of most of those 
who are quite friendly to the Northern cause. Tliey do 
not think the restoration of the Union either desirable or 
possible. Newman Hall, whose name is familiar to us all 
as an outspoken advocate of tlie Northern cause, said to 
me, "I am for the North; but the restoration of the Union 
is impossible, and you are only fighting for a boundary." I 
found even loyal Americans residing in Englaiul greatly 
aliccted by the same view, and full of misgivings of the 
ultimate result. English people consider us as a nation 
under the influence of a hallucination, a madness on this 
point, and to declr.re your faith in the success of the Fed- 
eral govcnnnent would in very many, nay in must circles, 
not a little damage your reparation for good sense and 
Bound judgment. 

This unfavorable pre-pKlgment of the case extend?, fj-om 
the cabinet n)ini.-,ter down through all grades of society, 
and results from ignorance of the i-eal state of the case, and 
a desire pervading the great body of the people, that tlie 
rapture may prove perpetual. A public opinion is thus 
formed uhich misleads our iVieuds and even resident 
Americans. 

Many pn.foss to believe that the best hope of abolishing 
Blaver-r lies in establi.-liing the independence of the S.nith. 
They aiiect to think that if once the "Southern confederacy" 
gains a place among the nations of the earth, it mnst nec- 
essarily yield to the inflnence <»r tlie civilization of the age, 
and tiio indignant protest of Christendom, and abolish 
Blavery; jnr,r as it tlu- very existence of the "confederacy" 
were not a pr(»test against the <:vilization of the nineteenth 
century, and an open deliance of Christendom. But if the 
Federal government succeeds in re-establishing its author- 



ity over our whole territory, they maintain that slavery 
will be restored in all its rigor, and there will be no hope 
of abolishing the iniquity for ages to come. Thus they 
hold that it is the Federal government and the pec.ple of 
the North that are the incorrigible enemies of freedom, over 
wliose minds neither the opinions of the civilized workl, 
nor the principles of justice can be expected to exert any 
influence. I do not say that a majority of the Engli.4i 
people hold such opinions, I do not think they do; but that 
vast multitudes do is certain. 

Yet earnestly as the dissolution of the American Union, 
and the success of the rebellion as a means to that end are 
desired, there is no party in England, that is respectable in 
numbers, that desires tiie British government to recognize 
the independence of the South at present, or in any way 
so to violate a formal neutrality, as to give cause of war 
with the United States. Roebuck and Lindsay who agi- 
tate for immediate recognition are unpopular, and generally 
despised. 

The real position of the British ministry is, that they 
desire the success of the rebel cause, and anticipate it as 
the only possible i-esult of the conflict. But any present 
violation of neutrality in its tavor would embroil the 
nation with the United States, and prolong rather than 
shorten the contest. They differ from Roebuk and the iul- 
vocates of immediate recognition, not in the end to be 
aimed at, l)ut in the choice of means for securing it. Most 
of her Majesty's ministers, with Lord Palmerston at their 
head, wish to give countenance and encouragement to the 
rebellion, both personally and officially, just so fjir as they 
can without violating that fonnal neutrality behind which 
they liave chosen to take shelter. 

And this creed of the government is also the creed of a 
vast plurality of all the men and women I met in Britain. 
I believe it to be the creed of an overwhelming majority 
of the nation. I do verily believe that while I was sojourn- 



10 

ing in tliat coimtrj, the great niajority of the people in lib- 
erty-loving, slavery-hating England, (thoui;h of relative 
numbers I am liable to misjudge), were so in sympathy 
with that "confederacy," whose corner-stone is slavery, as 
ardently to desire and confidently to expect its success, in 
di-iving back the Federal armies, and securing for itself a 
place and a name in the family of nations. To this con- 
chisiou I seemed to be conducted by facts constantly around 
me, from the day I landed in that country, till the day of 
my departure. 

To some tlie reception our distinguished countr} man 
Henry Ward Beecher met in England may seem inconsist- 
ent with this view of the case. But those who think so are 
certainly not well informed of the different classes, of wliich 
the population of Great Britain is composed. In all the 
large towns, there is a class which, relative to tlie whole 
population, is small and without influence, composed of 
persons- whose sincere love of liberty and hatred of all 
oppression would naturally lead them to favor the cause of 
the North, and whose sympathies have been withdrawn 
from us, only by the belief that the people of the North as 
well as those of the South are utterly hostile to rhe rights 
of the negro. This belief has been for many years zeal- 
ously propagated there, not only by men who have been 
laboring to prepare the English mind to sympathize with 
secession when it sliould be ripe for open development, but 
by Dr. Geo. B. Cheever and a few other men of like 
minds — men who have taviglit the friends of the slave in 
Britain, that there was no true hostility to slavery in the 
political agitations of the period that preceeded the election 
of Mr. Lincoln, and in short that the negro has no friends 
in this country but themselves ai.d their handful of follow- 
ers. 

These representations have been accepted by the class of 
people to whom 1 refer, as unquestionable truth, and thei-e- 
fore while they will not give their sympathy to the South, 



11 



tliey withhold it from the North also. I will give you an 
example. Having taken a walk in tlie long tranquil twi- 
lio-'ut of a Scotch siiiuuier evening, along the base of Salis- 
bury Crag, < n my return I found niyselt* bewildered and 
unable to lind my way to my llutel. Observing a man ot 
very respectable appearance near me, I inquired the way. 
He said ''I am going tl;at way and will accompany you. 
You are a stranger." ''An American," said I. A conver- 
sation sprang up as we walked together, on the all ai»r^u!-b- 
ino- topic. He soon said "they are a set>of scoundrels on 
both sides." I stopped, and turning so as to look him full 
in the face, said, "f<.r you to speak thus of my country is a 
sin against God." He moderated his tone, we resumed our 
walk and 1 explaim d and told the truth as fast as I could. 
He soon began to receive it with candor, and exjiressed a 
strono- desire that I should address an audience in Edin- 
buro-h. Pie said there were hundreds of men in that city 
who were zealous in their hostility to slavery, but they al 
most all viewed the subject just as he did, thinking that the 
North is utterly untrue to the liberty of the negro, and 
therefore unworthy of sympathy. In connection with sev- 
eral other friends he made earnest efforts to procure for mo 
an opportunity to address a meeting in that city. But the 
bitter opposition of the many, and the timidity of the few 
prevented the realization of their wishes. 

The brilliant and well-deserved reputation of Mr. Beecher, 
and his well-known lidelity to the rights of the negro, 
overcame these obstacles, and procured him a favorable 
reception from persons of this, class in Edinburgh. The 
same happened also in Glasgow, Liverpool and London. 
But I am greatly mistaken or lii^ audiences were chiefly 
composed of the limited class of persons to whom I refer, 
and neitlier their numbers nor their enthusiasm impliesany 
general movement of the national mind, any more than 
, the burning of a few brush-heaps on the ice of the Ai'ctic 
6(^as would imply the opening of navigation to the ci''cina- 
polar octuu. 



12 

I do not mean that Mr. Beecher did not do a great d^al 
of good. I think far otherwise. He set thonisands rii;ht 
who had been set wrong by false representations. And 
thongh his audiences were hirgely composed of chisset* 
whom the London Times calls "Nobodies," yet these ■nohod- 
ies that are notwithstanding men and have the riglits oi 
men, must one day be lieard in England, and Mr. Eeocher 
helped them powerfully. But lam confident he left the 
great body of the English people much as he found them, 
and his experience is not at all inconsistent with what I 
have said. 

But strongly r.s this view of the case seemed to be sup- 
ported by facts, I was most reluctant to receive it. I re- 
garded it as shocking and incredible, till on further in qui ry 
I thought I saw the causes which pn.'duce and neceb^ifatt; 
just such a state of opinion and feeling- as I daily encoun- 
tered. 

It must be my next business to exhibit those causes, and 
the mode of their operation. It is to this part of my sub- 
ject that I attach principal imjiortance. lam thoroughly 
convinced that the British government and people are 
acting in this matter under no accidental and temporary 
influence; that they are contn-'led by causes wliicli are 
deep and permanent; that the ]'osition which they occupy 
in relation to the American coiiliict is a symptom of organic 
disease in tlic English body pol/.ic, which should be under- 
stood, and distinctly contempl;ii.d by the friends of lihorty. 
M'hether in England hersclt or in other parts of the world. 
and especially bv the friends of liberty in this country. 1 
h.ve read with great interest and profit the protonndly 
learned and philosophical oration of Hon. Charles Sumnef. 
on our Foreign Eelations. In nuiin I believe its argument 
to be sound and its conclusions just. But I wish, so far as 
England is concerned, to push the inquiry further than he 
has done, and to discover those causes, which have produced 
a development of English opinion and feeling, which at 



13 

first view seems so s range and nnnatural. Properlv 
viewed, I am convinced tliat it is perfectly natnral, and a 
thing to have been expected. 

In order to make the tiling quite plain, I have to illus- 
trate the toHowing proposition: — The government of En g- 
land is the govenruicnt of the many hy the privileged fm\ 
I am not about to deny that Enghuid is a free country, <>r 
that to a large extent our own liberty is of English huth 
and English growth, or that England hasinher past liistory 
done much for the Hherty of the human race. No man is 
more ready to acknowledge her claim in these respects titan 
I am. I liave always been proud of England as tiie cradle 
of freedom. 

Still it is true that when we assert that England is a tVc^e 
country, we utter a proposition which to the American 
public needs much qualitication and explanation. There is 
very much wliich to our nnnds is implied in the words 
"free country." which does not by any means exist in Eng- 
land. For example nothing is more directly in opposition 
to our ideas of freedom, than class legislation, laws de- 
signed and intended to confer certain privileges on a few 
and on the descendants of those few forever, to the exclu- 
sion of the many. Tiie same may be said of conferring 
privileges and emoluineiits on one religious denomination 
to the exclusion of all others. Yet nothino: is so funda- 
mental to British law and the British constitution as such 
class legislation. England is governed by such privileged 
classes, thus exalted by the laws above the rest of their 
fellow-men ; and these privileges guaranteed to them and 
their children forever. In this respect the fundamental 
principles of society in that country are as diametrically 
opposite to ours as it is possible they should be. 

In this opposition is found the true cause of the present 
state of British opinion in respect to this country. It is 
not always easy for an American to understand this. We 
can believe in the freedom, tranqnility and happiness of 



14 

the English people, under a polit'cal constitution differing 
very widoly from ours, without tlie least apprehension that 
hc'i" example will exert a revolutionary influence here. We 
cannot be made to i)elicve, tliat in any supposable case, our 
people are in danger of abandoning our democratic ecpiality, 
for s!ic!i a monarchy or such an aristocracy as that of Eng- 
lai:d. 

But an enlightened and thoughtful Englishman cannot 
so conUinplate the success of American democracy. Ask 
a well-informed EngHslunan belonging to the must liberal 
scliool of English politics, what is the reason why there is 
in (ii-eat Britain so little sympathy with the Federal gov- 
ermneiit in its present struggle. If yonr experience should 
agree willi mine, you will get for an answer something like 
the following: "England is governed by a privileged aris- 
tocracy and a State church; and the classes interested in 
pei'petuating these exclusive privileges reason, that if you^ 
country goes on prospering as in times past, wnthout a priv- 
ileged aristocracy, and without a State church, there is 
ground for apprehension, that influenced by your example, 
the English people will after a while conclude that they too 
can dispense with these expensive luxuries. And these 
])riviieged classes, phiced at the head of the nation, are able 
to send their influence far down into the low^er strata of 
society. And hence wherever the influence of the aris- 
toc'iicy and the State church can penetrate, there is a natu- 
ral desire, that the expennieut of free government going on 
in the United States may prove a failure." 

At lirst I received sui-h opinions, from however eminent 
a source, with great caution and distrust; but further observ- 
ation c<uivinccd me that they contain the true and oidy 
exphination of what I saw and heard. "The bubble has 
burst," exclaimed an English Aristocrat, counnenting on 
secession in the house of Lords; and in those words he 
uttered ih.e very heart of tlie goveWiing aristocracy of 
England. They wish the worUl t(/ -^gard the liberty, pro&- 



15 

perity and happiness of the United States, founded on dem- 
ocratic equality of rights, as a mere soap-bubble, brilliant 
indeed for a little time, but having at last shown itself 
devoid of every thing substantial, and no longer threaten- 
ing by its example to undermine the foundations on which 
rests all aristocratic privilege in England. And millions 
who themselves enjoy none of the privileges of the aris- 
tocracy, eclio back the sentiment. "The bubble has burst," 
expresses the prevalent theory of Englishmen on Ameri- 
can aflairs while I was among them. Men seemed to say 
to me by their looks and tones, "It is all over with yoMr 
boasted republic, and you are strangely deluded or you 
would know it." 

The bearing of all t^:is will be still more obvious, if I 
can make it apparent wliat aristocracy is, as an element of 
Endisli society. First and foremost stands the fact that 
one of the two co-ordinate branches of the great imperial 
legislature of England is composed of persons, who hold 
their seats by hereditary right. The meaning of which is, 
that there are in England some hundreds of families, the 
head of each of which is, by right of his birth, a member 
of that branch of the English legislature which corres- 
ponds to our United States Senate. You will appreciate 
the importance of this if you suppose, that in this country 
we were first to adopt the principle, that once a member of 
the United States Senate, a man remained a member till 
his death; again that at the death of a Senator his oldest 
son should by right of his birth succeed to his seat, and so 
on to his children and his children's children forever. We 
can form a conception how great a departure it would be 
from democratic equality of legislation, to confer such priv- 
ileges on our Senators and their descendants forever. This 
is English aristocracy. 

But this is not all of English aristocracy. From the 
time of the Norman conquest to the present, a period of 
eight hundred years, a few new noble families have held a 



16 

large portion of all the lands of the kingdom. This is true 
now to a greater extent than at any former period of English 
history. The same noble families whose heads compose the 
house of Lords, hold a large poition of the lands of the 
United Kingdom. And the land held by them is not, like 
all land with us, liable to be bt)ught and sold like any 
other property, bnt descends to the oldest son of the pres- 
ent holder, tlius perpetuating this land-monopoly forever. 
The oldest sun of a Lord succeeds not only to his father's 
seat in the senate, but to all his father's lands, and accord- 
ing to the theoi'Y and tendency of tlie system will transmit 
both to his children and his children's children forever: 
thus securing to tliese few families one-half of the legisla- 
tive power of the kingdom, and a monopoly of its lands 
forever. This gives you some idea of the value and im- 
portance of those class privileges, which the Aristocracy of 
England are interested in preserving and perpetuating. 

But this is not all. The laws which regulate the descent 
of all the landed property of the kingdom are constructed on 
the same principle. Whenever any land owner, noble or 
not, dies without a will, his real estate goes to his oldest 
son. And the custom of calling one's lands by his own 
name, and transmitting them to his oldest son as the rep- 
resentative of his family has come down from immemorial 
antiquity, and as the possession of such an entailed estate, 
confers high dignity and social position on a family, every 
wealthy man is under strong inducements to becom-^ an 
extensive land-owner if possible, and transmit it by entail 
to his oldest son as the representative of his family. Un- 
der the influence of these causes, that portion of the lands 
of the kingdom which is not held by the nobility propei'ly 
so called, that is, the Lords, is mostly monopolized by a 
small number of gentry, and is transmitted from father to 
oldest son, by the same tenure as the lands of the nobility. 
This process has gone on with great rapidity within the 
last few vears. It is almost within the memorv of man 



17 

that the number of holdings of land has been reduced from 
more thanij50,000 to 32,000, and this process of monopo- 
lizing the land in a few hands is now going on with unaba- 
ted rapidity. 

The consequences are deplorable. Few English laborers 
whether agricultni al or mechanical own the land on which 
they lie down at night, or the roof that covers them, or 
have anv hope of ever owning them. There is no land 
which can be bought in small parcels to suit purchasers of 
small means. It is chiefly aggregated into these great 
entailed estates, and not for sale on any terms. 

Some of the consequences of this order of things will 
strike an observant man, who merely rides across England, 
say from Liverpool to London by Railway, He will often 
see stretching away around him in every direction, the 
richest, most beautiliii and highly cultivated larms on earth, 
but perhaps not a human habitation in view. The men 
and women that till these fields dwell in small, inconven- 
ient, comfortless cottages, which belong to the proprietor of 
the land, and make no figure in the landscape, in which 
lai'ge families are crow.lod together in one, two, or at the 
most three rooms, with no hope of benefitting their condi- 
tion while they live. If there were free trade in land, as 
with us, a young man of industry and enterprise might lay 
aside his wages, live unmarried, and practice self denial, till 
he could purchase a littie homestead, and have the hope of 
a comfortable home. But that is impossible, the Land is 
monopolized by the nobility and gentry, and the young 
man has no hope but of just such a comfortless peasant's 
life as his father led before him. " Once a peasant, always 
a peasant " is a proverb. 

It is not to my purpose on the present occasion, to dwell 
on the influence of this laud-monopoly on the condition of 
the laboring classes. I will refer all who wish to inform 
themselves on the subject, to the work of Joseph Kay, Esq., 
M. A., "on the social condition of the English people." The 



18 

writer is an Englishman, a graduate of Caml^dge and a 
churchman, and not to be suspected of misrepresenting to 
the disparagement of his own country. He exhibits the 
miserable condition of the laboring classes, not as an argu- 
ment against the land monopoly on which the whole struc- 
ture of English society rests, but to secure a more vio-orous 
prosecution of the system of national schools. His book 
is a series of ill concealed fallacies from the beginning to 
the end. Multiply schools for the education of the poor as 
you will, they will still remain poor and hopelessly degraded, 
as long as a few thousand families monopolize all the real 
property of the kingdom. But the facts of this book 
remain undisputed and indisputable, and an American can 
see that they have their only explanation in this land mon- 
opoly and their only remedy in its destruction. Such a 
monopoly of the land of Great Britain is, by the existing 
laws of the realm, secured to the nobility and gentry, to the 
utter exclusion of the laboring masses, and it is such a 
monopoly, that the classes which now govern that country 
are interested in perpetuating. 

But we have not yet the whole strength of the case. All 
this is a provision for perpetuating out the influence and 
position of the families of the nobility and gentry ; but it 
is made not only at the expense of the great body of the 
English people, but of all the children of these very families j 
except the oldest sons, and such daughters as may have the 
good fortune to be married to oldest sons. Some provision 
must be made for these younger sons, or they will soon 
form a class, having all the pride and expensive habits of 
the nobility, with none of its affluence. Three great per- 
manent institutions of Britain stand ready to supply this 
want, — the army, the navy, and the church. By having a 
preponderating influence in the government in their own 
hands, they are always able for the most part to secure the 
oflices of high honor and emolument in the army and navy 
for the younger sons of the governing classes ; thus providing 



for them honorable and lucrative positions, and contenting 
their aspirations, without dividing to them any portion of 
their patrimonial estates. I do not affirm that such an allot- 
ment of these offices takes place to the entire exclusion <.)f 
persons born in humble circumstances. I only affirm the 
general course and tendency of things. I am aware that 
the army and navy would exist if these class privileges 
were abolished. But they would cease to be used for the 
benefit of certain privileged families, and by being thr'^'wn 
within the reach of all classes, would stimulate effort and 
encourage hope in those who now regard them as entirely 
beyond their reach. They would be administered demo- 
cratically and not aristocratically. 

With the church however the case is still stronger, and 
the abuse still more flagrant and atrocious. I wish to be 
understood. I am making no attack on the Episcopal 
church as such. I speak only of the English church as 
established by law, and supported by the state. And of 
that I affirm, that it is a principal, I believe an essential 
prop of British class privilege. Its high honors and princely 
incomes are in the gift of the crown and the aristocracy 
and most generously eke out any short comings of the army 
and navy, in p?'oviding for the younger sons and poor 
relations of the privileged classes I say nothing now of 
the enormity of using the sacred offices and functions of the 
Christian ministry for so sordid, and earthly a purpose, or 
of the fact that devout sentiments and a religious life are 
hardly considered essential qualifications for high position 
in the establishment. I speak only of the church as a 
political institution, as furnishing an opportunity to those 
who would otherwise be the poor relations of the aristocracy, 
made poor by this very law of primogeniture, to climb to 
the highest positions, and even to occupy the bench of 
Bishops in the house of Lords, the peers of Earls, Viscounts 
and Marquises. In that same magnificent house of Lords 
as I saw it in all the brilliancy of an evening session, (and 



20 

its sessions are held only in the evening,) there is nothing 
grander or more imposing than that bench of Bishops, 
occupying a position immediately on the right of the wool- 
sack, with their long robes of white lawn brightly contrast- 
ing with the red cushions of their seats; while the Prince ot 
Wales was in his seat among the great Lords of the realm 
in front of the Lord Chancellor, and the beautiful young 
Princess Alexauclra was looking down upon the scene from 
tiie gallery above, amusing herself, as I thought, with a 
young attendant, to see her young husband putting on the 
newly assumed dignities of a peer of the realm. It was 
quite refreshing amid all the solemn stateliness of that 
scene, to see that a royal Princess could amuse herself, as 
any light hearted American girl might have done, in like 
circumstances. 

I never was more intensely an American Republican 
than while I surveyed that scene; and my Republicanism 
was a good deal sharpened by the fact, that a sergeant-at- 
arms of very lordly and dictatorial bearing was constantly 
watching over some ten or twelve common men like my- 
self, who had obtained grace to occupy seats in the stranger's 
gallery, and if any one of us rose from his seat for a 
moment, for the purpose of seeing something which inter- 
ested him, he was told to take his seat, in a tone befitting 
the plantation; and that though no one was behind to be 
put to any inconvenience by his standing. It was only 
that common men might be made to behave with becoming 
decorum, and awful reverence, in presence of ths Lords 
spiritual and Lords temporal of England. As I surveyed 
that scene I thought I understood why that house of the 
British Parliament is conservative, and wishes to perpetuate 
class privilege by legislation. I could understand what the 
word conservative means in that house. I could see clearly 
why the Aristocracy supports the church, and the church 
seeks to lay its highest religious sanctions at the feet of the 
Aristocracy. "Tickle me and I will tickle you." 



21 

I know indeed that there are many clergymen of the 
church of England, who are not the younger sons, and 
po<jr relations of the privileged classes. But it is also true 
that there are real labors to be performed, which it is not 
to be expected, that a scion of aristocracy would be willing 
to perform. It is therefore necessary to have a little army 
of men in the church who will perform a great deal of 
drudgery for very small pay, and common men's sons will 
answer for that. It is also true that sometimes a man suc- 
ceeds in climbing to the highest honors and emoluments of 
the church, from a very humble birth. That is true of the 
present newly appointed Archbishop of York, whom I had 
the pleasure of hearing in an able and excellent address 
before the British and Foreign Bible Society, in Exeter 
Hall. I thought him an able and good man, and he spoke 
more like a well-educated and cultivated American, than 
any other speaker I heard in Britain. But such cases are 
spoken of as remarkable ; they are the exceptions and not 
the rule. And some such exceptions are necessary to the 
successful working of the system. If no hope were held 
out to commoners of promotion in the church, they would 
not be willing to perforin service as poor curates. No mat- 
ter how good your trap may be, you must bait it v/itli corn; 
but in skillful hands, a little corn will suffice to catch a 
great deal of game. 

This picture is not complete without showing how also 
the same privileged classes that have a perpetual monopoly 
of the lands of the kingdom and subsidize the army, the 
na\y and the church to-the support of their family interests, 
are able to exert an almost preponderating influence in the 
election of the other house of Parliament, and by means of 
government patronage to make themselves felt through all 
the gradations of the administration. But time would fail 
me for this detail on the present occasion. 

This then I affirm is an outline view of aristocracy — of 
class privilege in England. It is but an outline, and the 



22 

more one sees of that country, the more this outline is filled 
up with perfectly homogeneous details; the more one sees 
and feels the meaning of Mich words as class, rank, aris- 
tocracy. I thank God that in our country no man can 
learn what these words mean. 

Let any one now reflect that the government of the 
United States is an attempt to found a great English sj>eak- 
ing nation, upon principles exactly contradictory to all this, 
without a throne, without an aristocracy, witliout any class 
privilege,^ without any established church. Let it be remem- 
bered, too, that our language is common, and that thouglit 
circulates in both countries freely as the air. Is it then 
wonderful, if the privileged classes in England regard our 
success, our rapid growth, our prosperity and happiness 
under our democratic equality, as dangerous to the perpe- 
tuity of their exclusive privileges ? And that tliey ardently 
and passionately desire our failure, our overthrow ? That 
to see us convulsed with the throes of a great revolution is 
to them an occasion of exultation and joy? And that tlxey 
are unable to conceal their desire that the convulsion may 
result in the utter overthrow of the Great Kepublic? And 
that this desire finds utterance from the cabinet minister 
downward? Considering that the British government is 
composed of such materials, was it to be expected that it 
would sympathize with ours in its efl'orts to suppress a great 
rebellion, and restore the American Union upon the basis 
of democratic freedom and equality? jS'o! it would be 
unnatural and incredible. Precisely what is happening is 
what ought to have been foreseen and expected from the 
relation of the two nations to each other 

But I am told that while this explains the unfriendly 
position of the privileged classes, and the church towards 
our country at this time, it shows no reason why the un- 
privileged classes, and the dissenters should not sympathize 
with us all the more. But this will be plain enough, when 
we coniiiiler the way in which these classes, though seem- 



23 

k\g to have interests so opposite t>) those of the privileged 
classes, are yet made to sympathize in feeling; and co-oper 
ate in action with the aristoci-acj. We are apt to think of 
an Eno-lish commoner, as one who feels towards the aristoc- 
racy that is placed above him, as we should feel towards a 
similar number of tamilies, who might be arbitrarily selec- 
ted among ourselves, and permanently invested with such 
exclusive privileges as the nubility in that country enjoy. 
It may well be imagineil thtit we should feel nothing but 
animosity, and we are apt to suppose, that English unpriv- 
ileged men must feel the same. So we are apt to think of 
an English dissenter, as one who feels towards the privil- 
eged national church, as all other denominations in this 
country would feel towards one whicli might be singled out 
from all the rest, and richly endowed and supported at the 
expense of the State, and at our own expense. But this 
mode of viewing the suljject is very erroneous and fahacious. 
According to our conception of things, there are few mid- 
dle class men, and few dissenters in Enghind. 

Let us try to make this plain. Let us suppose the case of 
a prosperous tradesman, merchant or manufacturer, in the 
middle class, and belonging to a dissenting church; he cer- 
tainly does not much relish the superiority over him claimed 
and enjoyed by the higher classes. . He would like to see 
the way open to him to enjoy their privileges, or to be 
placed on an equal footing with those above him. And 
then as a dissenter he does not like the established church; 
especially he does not like to be obliged to support a church 
the principles of which he neither believes nor approves. 
Ihit he is loyal to the throne; he yields to no man in zeal 
to support the monarchy, and in attachment to the royal 
family. This is the boast of middle class men and dissent- 
ers generally. Almo»t no Englishman and certainly no 
Englishwomen that I met, has any leanings towards repub- 
canism. Within the circle of my observation, republicans 
are as scarce in England as monarchists in the United 



24 

States. And the Bentiment of loyalty has perhaps son^ 
peculiar intensity under a female sovereign. The feel- 
ing of loyalty mingles with the feeHng of gallantry, 
and each exalts the other. I am not about to intimate that 
our sovereign Queen Victoria does not really possess all 
the admirable virtues which her subjects ascribe to her; 
for really I have no right to speak on the subject. I did 
not even see the skirt of her royal garments, and to inti- 
mate such a thing even here, would be a sort of social trea- 
son. But I do say it seems to me her admiring subjects 
have very little knowledge whether she possesses them or 
not; that she is contemplated only at a great distance by most 
of them as a sort of mythical personage, an unknown object 
of homage, whom their imaginations invest with all possi- 
ble beauties, graces and virtues, and that for this sort of 
worship a woman is really a fitter object than a man. I 
may therefore I think jjresume that I have seen English 
loyalty at flood-tide, especially as my visit was just subse- 
quent to the marriage of the Prince of Wales to the beaii- 
tifal Princes Alexandra, thus bringing within the sphere 
oi' British homage another object of worship, combining 
royalty with youth and female beauty. The national en- 
th isiasm quite exceeded an American's comprehension. 

I have supposed the case of a middle class English dis- 
senter, in the midst of all this. It is a delicate point of 
honor with him not to be outdone by the proudest aristo. 
crat in the whole kingdom, in attachment to the throne. 
But he is a thoughtful man, and he inquires, can that throne 
be sustained, without the support of the aristocracy 'i And 
be readily answers no: so any other sensible man would 
answer. If, says he, we must have a throne, we must have 
an aristocracy, and I know not that we could have a better 
one than we have. The aristocracy of England is the most 
respectable which the world has ever seen. And he asks 
fu!-ther can the aristocracy be sustained without the support 
of the church? And I think a sensiWe man would again 



25 

answer, no. Deprive the younger sons of the nobility of 
those opportunities of place and power which the church fur- 
nishes, and many of them would be impelled to attack that 
law of primogeniture, which is the very foundation of all aris- 
tocratic privileges, the very corner-stone of the British con- 
stitution. You cannot make the younger sons of British 
nobility support that system, unless you give them some 
equivalent for that interest m the family estate which aris- 
tocratic law secui'es exclusively to the head of the family. 
Give them the church, and the chance of wearing the lawn, 
and occupying a seat in the house of Lords, and they will 
be content ; take it from them and they will lead the attack 
upon the whole system. 

Our middle class man is thus made to feel the necessity 
of sustaining the aristocracy and the established church. 
And accurdingl_y there are at this day very few middle class 
men who would overturn the aristucracy or the church if 
they could. Thus practically middle class men are aristo- 
crats, and dissenters are churchmen. This is not mere 
theory; I have seen it illustrated in very many living ex- 
amples. If a zealous dissenter makes an attack on the 
establishment, he will begin by assuring his hearers, that 
he has no manner of hostility to the church. If you utter 
a word that implies that you have something of a republi- 
can's aversion to the aristocracy, you will be rebuked and 
the thread of conversation, whatever it may happen to be, 
will be broken oiF, till the aristocracy can be vindicated 
with all the zeal of an Englishman's partiality for whatever 
is English. You will be assured, as I have been on the 
authority of highly intelligent and respectable independent 
ministers, that the English aristocracy are the most self- 
denying set of people in the world. In any such case, if 
you were interested in continuing the thread of conversa- 
tion, you will many times regret your allusion to the 
aristocracy before you will get back to it again, and you 
will take a lesson to avoid anything of the sort in the future. 



26 

There is another cause of great efficacy, which binds the 
lower to the higher classes, and makes them zealous in 
supporting the whole superstructure of Englisli society as 
it is. All classes in England above the toiling operative, 
ui- the peasant agricultural laborer, have hope of rising to 
woaltii. This is true of the mercantile, manufacturing and 
trading classes. And wealth always opens more or less 
chances of sharing the privileges of the aristocracy. By 
means of wealth a man of talents may find his way to high 
piilitical station, and even to a peerage. The son of a 
wealthy merchant may perhaps aspire to the hand of the 
daugb.ter of a noble of decayed fortune ; o-.- the heiress of 
a wealthy commoner may be a match for a needy marquis 
or earl ; and thus in many ways a commoner who is rich 
or hopes to become rich, may cherish the anticipation, that 
his blood may yet circulate in noble veins. These chances 
are sufficient to encourage the hope in a commoner of shar- 
ing, through himself or his children, the privileges to which 
his birth does not entitle him, and make him wish to pre- 
serve unimpaired, what he secretly hopes one day to onj< )y. 
The poor white man in our slave states hopes at sometime 
to become a wealthy slaveowner, and to enjoy the privi" 
leges of the class, and therefore always gives his vote to 
perpetuate those privileges. This is not the only analogy 
which 1 could point out, between society in England and 
in our Southern States. 

It is not difiicult then, to understand that as long as an Eng- 
lishman of the middle class is loyal to the throne and the 
royal family, he will be in sympathy with the aristocracy. 
He will dread the influence of the great Kepublic as tend- 
ing to revolutionize England, and overturn all those insti- 
tutions of privilege and caste, to which he is made to think 
lie is indebted for the liberty and tranquility which he en- 
joys; and the tranquility of English society must be seen to 
be understood. He is prepared to join with the aristocrat in 
tlie exultant exclamation, "The bubble has burst." 



27 

I have no difficulty in finding precisely here the cause 
of the want of English sympatliy with us in our present 
conflict. If the aristocracy and church of England sympa- 
thized with us they would have forgotten the instincts of 
their class. It would be as unnaturai as for an animal to 
loose the power of distinguishiiig its own kind. If the 
middle classes of Englishmen did sympathize with us, it 
would be the precursor of speedy revolution in England 
herself. It would show that the middle classes were so 
entirely out of sympathy with the aristocracy and the 
church, as no longer to tolerate their exclusive privileges. 
And if such a day ever comes, the days of the English 
aristocracy are numbered. 

In ordinary intercourse with the English people one con- 
stantly meets the evidence of the truth of what I have 
just been saying. The number of persons that I met in 
that country, who really like, or who do not dislike the 
democratic equality of our country is certainly quite small. 
As a general rule you cannot converse long with an intelli- 
gent Englishman, even though he belong to the middle 
classes, in relation to what is now happening in the United 
States, before he will give you to understand that he regards 
our present convulsion as a proof of the utter failure of our 
democratic institutions. It is hardly probable he will hear 
you patiently till you can make your own veiw of the case 
understood. He will not be long in making it apparent, 
that he thinks he understands the aftairs of our country 
much better than you do, and that if you will hear him he 
can point out to you the whole cause of our trouble in a 
moment. If you give him a chance — and he will take a 
chance whether you give it to him or not — he will aim his 
blows at the foundations of our institutions. 

The English have a right to be proud of their own in- 
stitutions, and of their own history, as compared .with other 
European nations. ' A sense of this superiority has pro- 
duced marked effects on the national character. Many of 



28 

them are not far from the belief, that it is in Britian alone 
that true ideas of government can be acquired. And the pres- 
ent troubles of our country have greatly confirmed them in 
this belief. They fully believe that an American, in order 
to understand English institutions, must learn in a docile 
8|>irit from an English teacher — and in this they are certain- 
ly not far from right — but that an Englishman has no need 
at all to be instructed in reference to our affairs, by anything 
which we can tell him. They regard themselves as en- 
dowed by their own superior position, with a political 
insight quite in advance of the rest of mankind. 

There is one proof of the correctness of these views which 
8eei:s tome at once the most mournful and the most decisive. 
It is the opinion almost universally entertained in England, 
in regard to popular education. On this important subject 
1 found an almost absolute uninimity, and that in opposi- 
tion to a system of popular education, which like ours shall 
be intended, to bring the treasures of knowledge within 
the reach of every child, irrespective of the condition of hie 
parents. The national mind is thoroughly imbued with the 
notion of class education. I often used the results attained 
to in the public schools of Boston, as an illustration of our 
system in its aims and spirit* 1 stated that the Mayor of 
Boston or the Governor of Massachusetts must either send 
his son to a school where he would be liable to have for a 
classmate and a seatmate the son of a day laborer, or else 
send him to an inferior school; and that that school is ab- 
solutely free alike to the son of the laborer, and the son of 
the Mayor. "That can never be in England," was the inva- 
riable reply. And with the present constitution of English 
society it is true, "that can never be in England ;" as well 
hope to supply the present cotton famine from the ice fields 
of the Arctic circle. It is a logical inference from the whole 
English system, that the child of the rich is to be educated for 
wealth and leisure, and the child of the p'oor for poverty and 
toil. And benevolent, humane, religious minds are not 



29 

shocked at this inference; they accept it, and reject the 
thoni2;ht of providing for universal education on democratic 
principles. '■'■Would you send your so/i to suoh a school f 
I was asked many times with pungent emphasis. I was 
proud to answer I do send my son and my daughter too to 
such school. "How then can I avoid the conclusion, that the 
Eno-lish middle classes are as trulv committed to theprinci- 
pie of class legislation as the aristocracy itself, and as unpre- 
pared to sympathize with the government of democratic 
equality in the United States? They discard our system in 
its fundamental principle. 

All this has been greatly aggravated by the periodical 
press, daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly. Many I know 
maintain that the alienated feeling 'which exists towards us 
is the result of merely accidental causes, and has been occa- 
sioned chiefly by the efforts of the press, and especially ol 
the London Times. And I am not at all insensible to the 
malignant power of such anti-American Journals as the 
London Times and Saturday Review in times like these. 
They have done all which the press, wielded by the highest 
order of talent, could do, to cast odium and contempt upon 
the Federal Government, and to encourage and aid tlie re- 
bellion. Nothing can make me hate England; but if it had 
been possible, the daily perusal of her newspapei-s foi- three 
months would have made me hate her most cordially. 
They flagrantly misrepresent facts; they studiously conceal 
from their readers things the most important to be known. 
They display before the English public every loathsome 
ulcer or unsightly pimple on the American body politic. 
The well-known vices of slavery and the south are charged 
over to the account of the people of the free states, while 
the slaveholders of the south are finely pictured out as high- 
toned gentleman. No meai^s which genius can invent is 
spared to make our government and people appear odious, 
coarse, vulgar and contemptible. You admit said a gentle- 
man, that the Saturday Review is clever. I admit, said I. 



30 

that should Milton's Satan turn editor, he would make just 
such a paper. And when I see tlic i)erverse and satanic in- 
genuity, which these and other English Journals hav(; 
employed against the cause of democratic liberty, all the vices 
and all the short comings of our government, our officials 
and our people, I feel that every American is under some 
such obligation to be consistently faithful to the cause of 
liberty, as every Christian minister and member of a Chris- 
tian church is, to lead a consistently virtuous life. The 
vices of Americans damage the cause of liberty, just as the 
vices of Christians damage the cause of religion. 

Still I deny that the primary cause of the mischief can 
be found in the journals. They have only uttered what the 
tuition was prepared and desirous to hear. They have only 
boon the mouth pieces of the English aristocracy and their 
cupporters and sympathisers. If the enlightened governing 
classes of England had been as earnest in their sympathy 
with the North, as thay have been in desiring the dissolu- 
tion of the Americn Union and the destruction of the great 
Republic, the Times would have been as violently Northern 
as it is anti-Northern. The Times understands the market 
for which it manufactuers. It adapts its seed to the soil on 
which it sows it. It would not have been possible, that the 
Times should have procured a reception or even a tolerance 
of its views of the American question, except on the condi- 
tion that the public mind was already prepared for it, by a 
settled aversion to the American Kepublic, and a wish to 
see it enfeebled and overturned. When millions wish to 
believe a lie, it is safe and profitable for the conductors of 
a public journal to utter it. This is precisely what has 
happened as between the Times and the British public. 

It is scarcely possible to conceive of the omnipresence of 
the Times in Britain, I do not remember ever to have en- 
terd a hotel or restaurant in which I did not find it, and 
in very many cases you will find no other paper. It is in 
every shop and every counting-room. "Every Englishman," 



31 

said an American residing in London, "finds fault with the 
Times, but no Englishman can eat his breakfast without 
it/' It is not confined to the British Isles. The great Con- 
tinental hotels of Germany and Switzerland have no reli- 
ance for daily news but on the London Times. During 
tliose years of our war this lying organ of the slaveholder's 
rebellion has not only had the job of drawing the portrait 
of us x\mericans for English, but for European use, and 
over a large portion of the continent, its version of our 
uffiiirs goes uncontradicted for absolute verity. It would 
not be diflicult to give a whole lecture on the London Times 
and Saturday Review; but I forbear. Perhaps I have said 
enough of a very disagreeable subject. 

In speaking thus of the newspapers of England, it would 
be unpardonable not to say, that there are several daily and 
weekly journals in Great Britain, that are true to our coun- 
try in this hour of her trial and true to freedom. Such 
are the London Daily News, the Mo'uing Star, the Cal-.-iht. 
nian Mercury at Edinburgh, and several others whicli nn'o-lit 
be named. But they are laboring under very great disad- 
vantages, and have very little control over public opinion. 
They are true prophets of freedom, but prophesy in sack- 
cloth. Indeed the position of these Joui-nals before the 
British public is one of the striking proofs of the correct- 
ness of my interpretation of British opinion. If you want 
the Times you can find it almost without taking a step. 
If you want the Daily News you must take some pains to 
get it. The journals that are in sympathy with American 
liberty have not the ear of the-people. 

Many persons would deny that they are at all influenced 
by the causes to which I have ascribed the present state of 
English feeling; though they would admit that they do 
desire the dissolution of the Union, and the success of tiie 
rebellion. On being asked why? they would say, the 
United States are to large for one nation. On explaining 
themselves further they would say , you carry yourselves 



32 

with too high a hand; when any difficulty arises between 
the two governments, we have to permit yon to have it your 
own way, to avoid a war. They want us to be smaller and 
weaker, in order that we may be more manageable. This 
view of the case was presented to me many times, and I 
have no doubt influences a great mumber of minds. These 
people want us to be in a position in which it will only be 
necessary for the British lion to show his teeth, tobrino- us 
to terms. They wish to be able to settle any difficulty 
summarily, by sending troops to Canada, as in the affair of 
the Trent. 

But this view really comes to the same thing as the one 
1 am insisting on. It is more superficial, but springs from 
the same root. If these men were in sympathy with our 
institutions of democratic equality, they would not wish to 
see us so weak, as to be under the necessity of doing the 
bidding of the "Mistress of the seas." They would wish 
us to be strong enough to stand fearlessly on our rights, in 
presence of the aristocracy of England. This jealousy of 
our increasing power springs only from a desire, that that 
aristocracy may easily maintain its supremacy on every 
continent and every ocean. In principle therefore this view 
of the case does not differ from that I have presented 
throughout this discourse. It is however the shape in which 
the subject presents itself to many minds: and it is amu- 
sing to see with what ingenuity they justify themselves in 
a view so intrinsically mean and selfish. It is better for 
you they say to be divided ; your country is too large and 
ir.iwieldy. They forget the boast that on the domains of 
their Queen the sun never sets. They say the North and 
the South are not homogeneous, — different races; the South- 
einei's hiirh-souled Enirlish cavaliers; the Northerners a 
mixed race. Irish, Scotch, Germans and English tradesmen, 
mechanics and small farmers. I am very friendly to your 
country said an Englishman, whom I met at a hotel in Scot- 
land, but I really think it would be for youi good to be 
divided. I appreciate said I such friendship at its full valuo 



33 

I am perfectly awave that there is one class of English- 
men, who do sincerely simpathize with us in onr present 
conflict, who will earnestly deny the truth and justice of 
tliis representation of English opinion and feeling. 1 am 
sorry to differ from them; for among them are persons 
whom I shall always delight to regard as ray personal friend s- 
But I am suiKj they are mistaken. The reason tliey wUl 
assign for their dissent is, that whenever any movement is 
made in Parliament in favor of recognition, it is always an 
ignominious failure. That is true; but why is it a failure? 
Not because Lord Palmerston and his government do not 
wish and expect the success of the rebellion, in common 
with the great body of the British Parliament. Notoriously 
they do; for they openly say so: but because they do not 
■think present recognition a wise measure for promoting that 
result. They choose to stand on the ground of neutrality. 
But that nentrality is only formal. Moral neutrality there 
is none, for they openly declare themselves from then- pla- 
ces in Parliament on the side of the shiveholder's rebelhon, 
and wish it success. How then does the fact that Koebuck's 
motion for recognition proved a failure, or the fact that Eoe- 
buck is generally esteemed a fool, which is true, show that 
British opinion is not what I have represented it? Plainly 
it does not show any such thing 

Thus far I have said nothing of cotton in assigning the 
causes of the present state of British opinion. I do not 
think the cotton famine which lias been caused by the great 
American conflict has exerted much direct influence on the 
policy of the British government. It has certainly been 
felt by the manufacturing interest as a great in('--nvenience, 
and a great many English people speak most (v>!uplacent1y 
of the forbearance of their government, in abstaining from 
active intervention to put a speedy end to a war, which is 
so disastrous to English interests. And if the government 
had been disposed to interfere in the matter, the necessity 
of having cotton would have furnished a very convenient 



34 

pretext for so doing. But intelligent men have always been 
able so see, that intervention meant a war with the United 
States, and that such a war would bring greater disaster 
upon the manufacturing and commercial interests of Brit- 
ain, than could ever come of the cotton famine patiently 
endured. British statesmen have never been blind to the 
consideration, that intervention in the interest of the cotton 
spinners weiild close the markets of the United States 
against all their products for an indefinite period, and let 
loose a swarm of American privateers on their commei-ce 
in every sea. 

But though cotton has exerted very little direct influence 
on the relations of the two governments, it has acted pow- 
erfully on British opinion, or rather on British feeling. 
Every one who has studied the lessons of history is well 
aware, that for more than a hundred years, the interests or 
the supposed interests of British trade have exercised a 
very powerful influence over the opinions, and passions of 
the people, and the policy of the government. It was 
British trade that shaped the whole colonial policy of Eng- 
land, almost from the founding of her American colonies. 
Her colonies were regarded with interest not in view of the 
extension of civilizalioii, freedom and chrisrianity over the 
hitherto unpt.-opled wilds of North America, but as most 
profitable ( lutposts and factories of Biitish commerce. And 
in legislating for them, there was little thought of making 
them strong, enlightened and free communities, but only of 
rendering them as profitable as possible to British merchants, 
and perpetual dependencies of the British crown. In proof 
of this I need only to refer to the oppressive restrictions whicli 
were laid on the commerce and manufactures of the colo- 
nies, and tlie persisting obstinacy with which the govern- 
ment maintained the slave-trade, in oppoc.ition to the wishes 
and oft repeated protests of the colonists. It was tlio sel- 
fish grasping spirit of British trade, that chiefly planted 
and sustained in the then thirteen colonies of Britain, that 



36 

bitter and poisonouB root, from the growth of which we are 
now reaping an uuequaled harvest of death. When I 
remember how unscrupulous and persisting Britain was, in 
fasteninc; the curse of slavery to American soil, and what 
millions of wealth were accumulated in British hands 
through that iniquitous traffic less than a century ago, I 
tliink England should bear the cotton famine growing out 
of the great American struggle, not onlj with patience, 
but with repentance and earnest etfort to make some repar- 
ation for the mighty mischief she inflicted on us througli 
her cupidity, in the days of our colonial dependence on her 
policy. And I mourn that I see so few signs either of 
repentance or reparation. 

I cannot forget that it was this grasping and selfish pol- 
icy of British trade, that made the war of the American 
Revolution a necessity not only of American freedom, but 
of the freedom of the British empire. One would have 
hoped that, taught by so sad a lesson, England would have 
learned to construct her commercial policy on more liberal 
and righteous principles. But if we examine attentively 
the relations of England to India and China, in periods 
lono- subsequent to American independence, we shall find 
sorrowful evidence, that the same selfish spirit still influ- 
ences British trade, and through it exerts a powerful and 
ofien disastrous influence on the government. The forcing 
of English opium, grown by compulsion in India, upon the 
markets of China, in direct violation of the salutary laws 
of the empire, and in utter disregard of all the vices and 
sorrows which it causes to that people, all, that English 
commerce might prosper and English merchants be made 
richer, is one of the most disgraceful and sorrowful trans- 
actions — or to speak more truly one of the most hideous 
crimes of the nineteenth century. And any one wlio has 
had intercourse with the English people during the progress 
of the great American conflict, has seen mournful evidence, 
that the same spirit is still active and influential. The feel- 



36 

ing is widely prevalent, that one of the foremost duties of 
the government is to protect trade at whatever cost, that if 
Britons want cotton they must have it, at po matter what 
cost to justice, humanity and freedom; and that tlie gov- 
ernment should tolerate no state of things in any other 
country, which interferes with the supply of cotton to the 
English mills. They almost feel that the island of Great 
Britain was alone made to get rich, and the rest of the 
world to furnish it materials and a market. 

It is almost ludicrous to observe with what animosity and 
passion many Englishmen speak of the Morrill Tariff. 
They seem almost to feel that for us to impose a duty on 
a product of British industry is a direct and glaring in- 
fringement on their rights, and w^ouid be a just cause of war, 
if tliey were not too Ibrbearing and peacefully disposed to 
make war lor such a reason. Tliey seem to have forii'otten 
that it is not yet twenty years since, the great leading sta- 
ples of all the free American States encountered a duty in 
British ports, which in all ordinary circumstances amounted 
to prohibition. In some such cases Englishmen seem to 
me to have poor memories. I believe that when England 
adopted the policy of free trade, she took a step in the 
right direction, that she learned one really useful lesson; 
but she must allow her American cousins a little time to 
learn, what she herself could only bo taught by tlie expe- 
rience ot" centuries. The sensitiveness of the English about 
whatever affects the American market for English products 
is certainly remarkable. 

It must be admitted that this selfishness of British trade 
is one fertile source of Sorthern sym})atliy at the present 
time. Tliey desire tlie dissolution of the x\nierican Union 
into an indefinite number of parts, that there may be no 
power on this continent, as there is none on the other, able 
to cope with the "Mistress of the seas." On that supposi- 
tion they hope that England will be able to control the 
commei'cial policy of the American continent for the long 



37 

future. If we are to have a strong, united, ocean-bound Re. 
public, then there is no hope for British poKcy here. But if 
we can be divided and kept feeble by internal wars and 
jealousies, then may England still rule the waves; and 
though America has become politically independent, yet 
commercially she will be but a vast dependency of Britain. 
Hence the passionate desire of thousands, that the Ameri- 
can Union may be dissolved, and that anything, even the 
accursed system of negro slavery, should be used as the 
wedge of division. "Furor arma ministrat," That under 
the influence of such passions men forget the relations of 
this conflict to the cause of universal freedom is not won- 
derful. 

I should do injustice to my subject not to remark that 
English trade and English aristocracy are most intimately 
united in their interest and spirit. Though the aristocracy 
are not directly engaged in trade, they are in many ways 
most deeply interested in the extension of British com- 
merce and in the increase of the nation's wealth. The 
increase of the population and especially the growth of the 
great manufacturing and commercial cities add immensely 
to their own incomes, and the value of tlieir estates. Had 
England continued to be an agricultural people, having no 
manufactures or commerce except for the supply of her 
home wants, her aristocracy, her church and her universi- 
ties would have been comparatively poor till this day. 
And from manufactures and commerce must come that 
indefinite increase of those revenues, which is hoped for in 
the future. It is by the golden harvests of commerce also, 
combined with manufactures, that the tradesman expects 
to obtain wealth, which shall open a pathway to himself or 
to his children to the honors and privileges of the peerage. 
Thus the aristocracy of rank and the aristocracy of wealth 
both actual and prospective are alike interested in the suc- 
cess of the rebellion, and the dissolution of the Great lie- 
public. 



It was a sorrowful expeiience to an American pavinw 
his first and probably his only visit ^o England, after havino- 
loved her from his cradle, to be obliged daily to stand face 
to face with such facts, and to admit such a view of Eng- 
land to be true. Is this then even so? Is this Englaiui, 
that has fought so many battles .for freedom, and carried 
her hostility to the slave-trade and negro slavery to the 
ends of the earth, to fail us in this hour, and give her sym- 
pathy, her countenance, and her efficient material aid to 
this iniquitous conspiracy, pledged to tear down our repub- 
lic because too favorable to freedom, and found a new- 
power hitherto unknown to the nations, on negro slavery 
as its corner-stone? lo the English government and peo- 
ple restrained, not only from recognizing this conspiracy 
against the civilization of Christendom, but from activ*- 
intervention in its favor, only by considerations of policy 
and expediency? Born in treason, robbery and perjury, 
do Britons desire its success and victory as a means of 
dismembering our republic? And I was forced daily to 
see and know that they do. And a solemn sense of the 
enormous criminality of such a position of the English 
people in such a crisis, suggested to my mind dark forebo- 
dings of the convulsions which may yet await that people, 
and cast many a shadow over what would otherwise have 
been one of the most cheerful and joyous portions of my 
life. I afiirm moreover, that this criminality attaches not 
to aristocrats and churchmen alone, but to commoners and 
dissenting ministers and people. 

I bore credentials a^ a delegate from the American Con- 
gregational Union, to the Congregational Union of Eni^land 
and" Wales. I was received by that body, with every cour- 
tesy which was due to the body which I represented, and 
invited to address the Union under favorable circumstance; 
but was requested to say nothing of the merits of tJie 
great conHict now going on in our country. The reason 
assioned for this limitation was, that they were divided in 



39 

sentiment on this subject, and its introduction would lead 
to ail unpleasant debate. It was therefore that I was not 
permitted to speak one word before that assembly of Brit- 
ish christians for the cause of freedom in my country, though 
they had passed in my presence a resolution declaring then- 
undiminished hostility to negro slavery. I remembered 
the past. I called to mind the oft repeated and just remon- 
strances which come to us from our brethren in Great 
Britain against this iniquitous system, — remonstrances wi)ich 
I doubt not have exerted no small influence in bringing on 
the very conflict in which we are now engaged with the 
rebel propagandists of slavery. And yet the Congrega- 
tional Union of England and Wales is now divided in sen- 
timent, and does not know which side to take, and sup- 
presses all utterance on one of the gravest moral issues of 
the nineteenth century, that she may shield herself from 
unpleasant agitation. This seemed to me marvellous and al- 
most incredible, I knew not what to think of British christ- 
ianiiy. I wondered whither the spirits of Wilberforce and 
Clarkson had fled. T felt that the present conduct of these 
men cast a painful suspicion over the sincerity of their past 
pr fessions, and was fitted to raise a serious doubt as to the 
position they may be expected to occupy in the future. 

If the views of this discouse are correct one can not contem- 
plate the future of England without grave apprehension. 
If these things are so, she cannot in the future render any 
important service to the cause of liberty in the world, till 
her own constitution shall have undergone very great re- 
forms — reforms indeed much more radical than she is now 
willing to tolerate even in conception. That aristocratic 
liberty which exists in England is not now possible in any 
other country on earth. The reason why it is possible in 
England is, that thr(3ugh all the struggles of the past, the 
English aristocracy has maintained itself, and more than 
maintained itself, as the governing force in society. It 
has united with the people in limiting and almost annihila- 



40 

ting royal prerogative, and those powers which have been 
taken from the crown it has so divided with the pedple, as 
always to reserve the lion's share to itself. To the people 
it has granted and guai'anteed personal liberty, while to 
itselt it has taken enormous privileges, and the power of 
directing and controlling the most powerful empire on earth 
for ages. But a liberty so guarded by contract between the 
different orders of a state, while each retained its own sep- 
arate existence, was never attained in any other country, 
and has been enjoyed in England so long, only by what 
one is tempted to regard as a happy accident, and cannot 
now be established in any jther nation on earth. It 
cannot be in America, because all attemj)ts to transplant 
the aristocracies of Europe to this continent have proved 
miserable failures, and no man in his senses believes it 
possible, to create a respectable aristocracy out of American 
materials. It cannot be in continental Europe, because in 
all those countries aristocracy was hrst laid utterly prostrate 
for two centuries, beneath the thrones of absolute monarchs, 
and then trampled in the very mire of the streets, in the 
great convulsions of the French Revolution, and those that 
succeeded it. No well informed man would regard it 
as any more possible to restore aristocracy in France, Ger- 
many and Italy, to that control over society which it has in 
England, than it is to create an aristocracy in the United 
States. When the aristocracies of those countries, in the 
fifteenth century, bowed the neck to an absolute monarch, 
they forever lost the power of directing society, or perform- 
ing for it any such function as that performed by the aristoc- 
racy of England. 

He therefore who proposes to establish either in America 
or continental Europe the aristocratic liberty of England 
does but delude himself, and all who follow in his steps. 
To Christendom, to the world, outside the single little island 
of Britain, the issue is, the ahsolute despotisTu of one mam, 
or the demoGratic liberty of the United States. "With the 



41 

latter England will never sympathize, to it, she will never 
give enconragement or aid, while she retains her present 
aristocratic constitution. If an aristocracy asks her counte- 
nance she will give it even to the slave-holding, womar.- 
whipping aristocracy of the Uniied States. She allies ht-r- 
self with the upstart despotism which rules in Fj-ance, 
though in the person of a despised and hated scion of the 
Bonapartes, because, though sincere in nothing else, it is 
sinceie in its hostility to popular rights and to democratic 
equality whether in France or Italy. She will favor an ar- 
istocratic liberty, which is and ever must be quite impracti- 
cable in any other spot on earth, and which may not be pos- 
sible even in her owri island for another quarter of a century, 
but she will frown on that democratic liberty, which alone 
is possible to the human race. This is the England of the 
present and must be the England of the future, till she over- 
turns her aristocracy and her church, and accepts for her- 
self the doctrine of the equal rights of man. 

I will also add, that I regard the present conflict in our 
country as involving, not only the cause of liberty here, but 
in England also. The freedom which England now enjoys 
was in a great degree wrought out for her in our own revo- 
lutionary struggle. We conquered not only liberty for our- 
selves, but for her also. I am persuaded that the same 
thing is to happen again, that English liberty is again to be 
achieved on American soil. There is to day a band of noble 
men — noble in soul though not r oble born — in that country, 
who know this well; who feel that every triumph of the 
Federal cause is a triumph of liberty in England ; that if 
we succeed, the friends of freedom in Britain, now prophe- 
sying in sack-cloth, will again have the ear of the nation, and 
the days of aristocratic privilege and ecclesiastical domin- 
ation will be ended. 

Now, the London Times, the Saturday Review, and other 
organs of the governing classes have it all their own way. 
Democracy covered with shame by its past unnatural and 



42 

unwilling connection with the unspeakable atrocities and bar- 
barisms of negro-slavery, and even made to appear frightful 
and appalling through its association with the present san- 
guinary conflict, tiuds few in England and in Europe " so 
poor to do it reverence." But if we succeed, as we trust 
in God we shall, in desti-oying, root, and branch, and seed, 
that poisonous tree which our former English rulers planted 
here against our will, and in establishing peace and freedom 
from ocean to ocean, over all the Great Republic, and the 
years of our peace and prosperity shall again roll on their 
unbroken course, the enemies that have denounced and de- 
rided us, and mocked at our calamity will be covered with 
shame and confusion, and forever branded as prophets of 
lies by the public opinion of Christendom ; and that system 
of class privilege and ecclesiastical domination, in the inter- 
est of which all these falsehoods have been perpetrated, will 
fall and utterly perish under the indignant rebuke of a 
liberated world. 

I am not an enemy of England, nothing can ever make 
me so. I abhor her position in reference to our present con- 
flict, and regard it with mingled contempt for its meanness, 
and indignation for its criminality. But I love her still as 
the mother of freedom, and believe she will yet share that 
ghu-ious inheritance, which God is working out for us and 
our children, through the terrible agonies of tiie present. 
We are too closely bound by the ties of a common language 
and a common literature, to permit democratic freedom to 
r^ii;n on this continent from ocean to '^cean, without over- 
turning the tyranny of class privilege in Britain. I am not 
in favor of provoking any war with that nation. God for- 
bid. If it be possible, as much as lieth in us, let us live 
peaceably with her and with all mankind. But the millions 
of her own oppressed poor silently protest against our per- 
mitting the proud aristocracy that now domineers over them 
to over-ride our rights, or trample on the smallest portion 
of our independence. Let it be understood that this is not 



43 

possible. We havo conquered our independence once, let 
us maintain it forever. 

Above all let us maintain our moral independence. Let 
us dismiss all this restless solicitude about what English- 
men may think and say of us. If the views of this dis- 
course are sound, we may know that as a nation they can- 
not judge us candidly and fairly if they would. Let us not 
expect what we ought to know "a priori" cannot happen. It 
is as natural for a man who is in sympathy with the aristoc- 
racy of England to look on America in a spirit of dispar- 
agemeiit and sneer, as for a bull-dog to growl. Let us not 
be angry at the animal for acting out his own nature and 
instincts. Let us build on the everlasting foundation of 
freedom and the equal rights of man, and knowing that 
other nations, that are building on a very different fonnda- 
tion, cannot sympathize with us, or wish our work to pr(»s- 
per, let us dismiss all solicitude about the opinions of cotem- 
poraries, and appeal our cause to the judgment of posterity, 
and of a righteous God. 



-> 



